"Burn Him If He's Guilty" - Mother Of A Man Who Allegedly Raped And Killed A Vet In India
"If my son is wrong, burn him the same way she was burnt. Wrong is wrong."
A veterinary doctor was allegedly gang-raped, murdered, and set ablaze by four men in Hyderabad, India last Wednesday, 27 November
According to Al Jazeera, the 27-year-old victim was returning home after seeing a dermatologist. She had parked her scooter near an expressway toll plaza and took a cab to the clinic.
The four accused, who were drinking nearby, had watched her and allegedly punctured her tyre. When she returned, one of the men offered to repair it and took her two-wheeler away.
At that moment, the victim had called her younger sister to tell her she was stranded and that she was afraid.
Her sister had gone to the toll plaza to look for the victim after failing to reach her on the phone. Unable to find her, she went to the police station to report the incident.
The police recovered the charred body of the victim, doused in kerosene and wrapped in a blanket, on Thursday morning, 28 November.
Police said medical evidence would be hard to obtain given the state of the body but that they were working on the assumption the victim had been raped.
The police also said the four accused are being remanded in judicial custody for 14 days.
The gruesome killing has since sparked outrage and protests throughout the nation
On Saturday, 30 November, hundreds of people laid siege to the police station where the four men are being held, demanding they be handed over to them.
One of the perpetrator's mother has said that her son should be hanged or burnt to death if he was found guilty
This comes after the victim's mother demanded that the culprits be burnt alive in full public glare.
"If my son is wrong, burn him the same way she was burnt. Wrong is wrong," she said, as quoted by Times Now.
"Isn't the victim also the daughter of a mother? I am suffering today, I can imagine what the girl's mother is going through."
The murder has set off a whirlwind of social media comment, many calling for tough punishment
"The culprits must be given severest punishment," commented Rajasthan state's chief minister Ashok Gehlot, one of tens of thousands to post on Twitter.
"It has been 7 years since the gut-wrenching 'Nirbhaya' case and our moral fabric continues to be in pieces," Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar tweeted, referring to the fatal gang rape of a young woman on a bus in 2012, who is now widely known as 'Nirbhaya' or 'fearless' by Indian media. "We need stricter laws. This needs to stop!"
According to Reuters, the current case also has #HangRapists trending on Twitter in India.